Tales from Ex Alley

Don’t ever believe them if they say they’re on OKCupid to use their Groupon deals. Oh, you say you can’t believe I was that gullible? Well…you see.  The thing about dating is, most of the time you end up saying later, “Oh, I should have believed him when he told me that unusual thing about himself….” Plus, it sounded like a nice, low-pressure way to socialize. Get together with Groupon  [ Read More ]

Once, I went to hear Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) speak. She took some Q&A from the audience after her talk, and one of the women there started to wax eloquent about Liz’s bravery in sharing all that mindbogglingly personal stuff.  Liz just sorta choked back a giggle and said, “Oh, you see, it’s actually not courage.  It’s a complete lack of personal boundaries.” Oh Liz, I love  [ Read More ]

“Here’s my Facebook page.  I’m an open book,” he IM’ed. The Facebook URL, then forward-slash, then “ANDROS” (not his real name…but his douchebag rating ended up being high enough that I didn’t work all that hard at changing it substantially either). “Very nice branding,” I typed back, unsure what else there was to say about someone who was either a household name in his field or just grandiose.  (I knew  [ Read More ]

An exchange of text messages after kids are in bed.  A spontaneous invitation, a giggle or two, and the anticipation of filled wine glasses, shared tales, and candid talk about sex.  No, not a bad-mommy date.  Just an impromptu Friday evening with my next door neighbor.  I’ll call her Lila, since that’s her Match.com handle. Lila and I knew each other in our “other lives”–that is, before we each made  [ Read More ]

We are all, of course, familiar with the notion of a sabbatical.  There are some fields that are so taxing to the mind or spirit that a paid “working vacation” every seven years or so seems the only civilized way to go about things.  And asabbatical not only offers a rest, but it seems to hold out the possibility of achieving true rockstar status in one’s field.  Remember that political science  [ Read More ]

“So tell me the story of each of these tattoos?” He was wearing a t-shirt, and the ink ran up both arms, popping out around the collar too. The tattoos told a lot of Jake’s history, as I’d figured they would.  (“Jake” is the guy previously referred to as LuvToy69.  Yeah, yeah, yeah….I’ve developed somethin like a high school crush on this particular Marine sergeant badass who just happens to  [ Read More ]

Why, you may ask, would I even answer a message from a guy with the handle LuvToys69? Does it get any cheezier?  Well, okay, at least it wasn’t LuvToys694U.  But still…grade-A, straight from Wisconsin.  And of course, dear reader, we both know the answer to that question. He was just really hot.  A chiseled, square-jawed, military kind of hot.  And, from his introductory message, I felt deep in my bones  [ Read More ]

My kids have officially weighed in on my dating life.  Well, not all at once.  Their opinions have come out in dribs and drabs–often on the heels of a session with “Miss Laura,” their tell-it-like-it-is counselor.   I’m glad to hear their thoughts, because what do I know about all of this?  I was in a relationship for nearly a year with a guy they got to like quite a  [ Read More ]

I’ve been working with a personal trainer for about 12 weeks now.  Her name is Brenda, and she’s a very buff, radiant, springy, blond 49.  I meet with her at 5:45 a.m. three times a week, and in between sets of truly gruesome exercises, we talk.  I’ve never done anything so extravagant as hiring a trainer before, but back last November, the guy I’d been in a relationship with admitted  [ Read More ]

It was bound to happen eventually.  I live in such a small town, after all.  Yes, I knew it was only a matter of time until I bumped into Mr. Easily Shocked and Mr. Trading-Up. I know, I’m not making any sense.  Let me try to explain.  In my 18 months of dating, there have only been two men who have behaved badly.  Not awful (statistically speaking) for a year and a half  [ Read More ]

My neighbor Lila has gotten a lot of interest here since I blogged about her a couple of weeks ago.  I had private messages from a bunch of people who thought she sounded a heck of a lot more interesting than me.  So here’s an update on Lila. We had a snowstorm here, and I pulled up to Ex Alley one evening to find that there was a humongous pickup with a very  [ Read More ]